Scotland

Gordon Brown and New Labour suffered an electoral disaster in Glasgow
East, last Thursday. A 22% swing to the Scottish National Party (SNP)
resulted in the overturn of a previous 13,500 Labour majority. The SNP
won with a majority of just over 300.

This was payback: payback for years of neglect by New Labour who, long
ago, abandoned the working class for the rich and the capitalist
establishment. Payback for increasing levels of poverty among the young
and old; rocketing costs of food, fuel and petrol prices while the storm
clouds of an economic recession gather. Glasgow’s East End was the scene
of a referendum on the New Labour project and its architects, Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown, alongside Labour’s long-standing failures in Glasgow
over decades

The political fallout of this defeat may well end the career of Gordon
Brown who could face a challenge to his position from within the Labour
party. Brown has become a prime minister with feet of clay. Like King
Midas, in reverse, everything Brown touches turns not to gold but to
ruin. Not once did Brown come to Glasgow East during the campaign – an
indication of the liability he has become. In contrast, SNP leader Alex
Salmond campaigned 12 times in the East End, hoping to capitalise on the
relative popularity of the SNP government in Scotland, compared with the
catastrophic performance of the Labour-led Westminster government.

Labour’s campaign was a series of mistakes and blunders. The preferred
Labour candidate pulled out at the last minute and their campaign launch
was delayed for three days until they found a replacement. In the middle
of the campaign, the plan supported by Gordon Brown to give Margaret
Thatcher a £3 million state funeral, was announced. This is an insult to
working class communities across the UK, who suffered and still does as
a result of the brutal legacy of Thatcherism. It was also another potent
reminder of how far New Labour had gone to embrace the policies of
neo-liberal capitalism. This was seized on by the SNP. A new wave of
rises in fuel bills were also announced, as was the news, in the last
week of the campaign, that Glasgow was to become a laboratory experiment
for the effective abolition of incapacity benefit. Glasgow East has
11,000 people on incapacity and this attack on the sick and the poor
outraged many.

After all this, it was a wonder that Labour almost held onto the seat.
There was no tidal wave of enthusiasm for the SNP. Independence for
Scotland did not feature as a key issue – nor was it an issue that the
SNP campaigned on. Instead, the SNP concentrated on the unpopularity of
the Brown government, on the rising cost of living and the prospect that
a defeat for Labour would force a change of policy over price rises and
fuel costs at Westminster. The desire to give Labour ‘a kicking’ was the
overwhelming mood and the SNP, who stood a well-known local candidate,
were the main vehicle in which to do that.

Nevertheless, 11,000 people still voted for Labour. Partly, among an
older generation, there is still a faint echo of a tradition that Labour
was the party that working class people voted for. This was reinforced
by a fear that a Labour defeat would lead to an increased likelihood of
the return of a Tory government at Westminster - as well as opposition
to independence. The prospect of the nightmare of the election of a Tory
government could still be a powerful factor in the outcome of the next
Westminster elections.

Socialist campaign

What the Glasgow East campaign and outcome shows is the potential to
build a powerful socialist alternative to all the big business parties –
including the SNP. Solidarity’s campaign was impressive and, by far, the
biggest of any party outside of Labour and the SNP. In a campaign called
at very short notice and lasting less than three weeks, Solidarity
managed to organise 40 street stalls in various parts of the
constituency, speaking to literally thousands of people. 40,000 plus
leaflets were delivered to every home in the area by the post office,
with a further 20,000 distributed by Solidarity members. 5,000 leaflets
advertising public meetings in Shettleston and Easterhouse were used, as
well as 6,000 special polling day leaflets.

Solidarity received a very warm and sympathetic response to our key
policies of a living minimum wage and pension, radical wealth
redistribution, public ownership, particularly highlighting the need for
nationalisation of the energy, oil and food companies, making a killing
out of rising prices, as well as an end to the war and the scrapping of
nuclear weapons, a ban on the public sale of airguns and for an
independent socialist Scotland.

Tricia McLeish, Solidarity’s candidate and a local government worker and
active trade unionist in Unison and was the only person standing who has
lived in the East End all of her life. Alongside Tricia, Tommy Sheridan
played a central role in the campaign and is still clearly seen as a
popular figure among the working class in Scotland. Solidarity’s public
meetings - the only party that organised any public meetings - were very
well attended, with 45 in Shettleston and 20 in Easterhouse. In all, 12
new people joined Solidarity during the campaign.

The 512 votes won by Solidarity represented 2% of the poll, and under
the circumstances, was a good result. The extremely polarised nature of
the election (more than 86% of those who voted either voted Labour or
for the SNP), made it difficult for a smaller socialist party to
convince people they should vote Solidarity. Many people told us that
they would have backed Tricia McLeish but that they wanted to protest at
new Labour and would back the SNP instead. All parties were affected by
this squeeze. Although the Tories came third, their vote fell, compared
to the last general election and they only polled just over 6%. The Lib
Dems fared even worse and they lost their deposit, polling 915 votes,
compared to 3,600, in 2005. A number of Lib Dem voters switched to the
SNP.

The Scottish Socialist Party actually achieved a slightly higher vote
than Solidarity, polling 555 compared to Solidarity’s 512. But it is
clear that the fact that the Labour candidate had the same name as the
SSP candidate (who appeared before the Labour candidate on the ballot
paper) did result in an artificially inflated vote for the SSP. This
analysis was underlined by the fact that the overwhelming majority of
spoilt ballot papers involved voters marking a cross beside both the
Labour and the SSP candidate. Even with the confusion over the name, and
the fact that the SSP stood their national co-convenor and former MSP
(member of Scottish Parliament) Frances Curran, the SSP still saw their
support fall by half compared to 2005, at just over at 2%.

On the ground, however, in terms of the numbers of activists, street
stalls, leafleting teams and numbers of people spoken to, Solidarity was
way ahead of the SSP.

Whether Gordon Brown survives, or not, the likelihood of the return of a
Tory government under David Cameron in increasing by the day. The
deteriorating economic situation will increase the attempts of all
pro-capitalist governments, including the SNP government in Scotland, to
make the working class pay for the crisis in terms of cuts and attacks
on living standards. Under these circumstances, the need to build a
powerful mass party of socialism that defends the interests of the
working class is more important than ever before. The CWI in Scotland,
which played a key role in Solidarity’s campaign, will continue to work
to build Solidarity to achieve that goal.